That's The Best Part.
I've been thinking recently about silent protagonists.
It tends to put me off trying a videogame if the protagonist is silent. I often find it hard to get invested in silent protagonists, and that can really impair my enjoyment of a game. If I'm going to spend hours inhabiting a particular character, I'd like to care about that character!
However, in recent years, I've discovered a couple of silent protagonists who really clicked for me. I thought it might be interesting - for me, if no one else - to consider which silent protagonists work for me, and what makes them work.
Therefore: here's a list of silent protagonists from games I've played, in roughly descending order of fondness!
I'm defining 'silent protagonist' here as a character who hits both of the following points:
a) They are unvoiced or minimally voiced. They might have voiced action grunts or brief battle quotes, but they're never going to say an eloquent line of dialogue aloud.
b) If they speak at all, it's exclusively or almost exclusively through occasional dialogue options chosen by the player. They don't paraphrase or elaborate on the dialogue option; the text in the option is all you get.
I've omitted characters from games I never really played enough of to form a strong impression of the protagonist, e.g. Bloodborne and the various Zelda games I've unsuccessfully attempted to get into. I've also probably omitted some characters just because they slipped my mind.
Silent protagonists I love:
Protagonist (Persona 5). I've never seen another silent protagonist with quite as much personality as Joker. Plenty of voiced protagonists don't have as much personality as Joker. His animations are stylish and distinctive; his dialogue options are frequently hilarious. He's a bold, playful, sarcastic little shit and I love him.
Sunny (Omori). The game really immerses you in Sunny's head, in a very literal way. Although he never speaks, I got a strong impression of his fears and delusions and psychological struggles, and I ended up getting very attached to this kid. Omori doesn't typically give you choices more complex than 'yes/no', but I found it interesting that the game would sometimes offer yes/no choices as a way of indicating hesitation, fear or reluctance; there are times when just the fact that you're being offered the choice tells you something about Sunny's character, because it means he's torn between the two options.
Kris (Deltarune). I find Kris fascinating. There's something so strange and dark and unsettling about them, and the glimpses we get of their character paint an interestingly complicated picture. They're lonely, they're bored, they're an outcast, they're sentimental, they have a cruel streak, their friends mean a lot to them. The player, in their role as the one controlling the protagonist, is able to make Kris do things against their will, but it's unclear how Kris feels about the player's presence overall. I'm so interested to see how the rest of Deltarune goes.
Silent protagonists I like:
Chell (Portal). Chell is truly silent, never gets so much as a dialogue option, but the gameplay conveys an impression of her character as relentlessly determined. She also stands out to me for being a female silent protagonist, which I haven't seen many of! It often feels like protagonists aren't allowed to be female unless there's somehow a reason for them to be female, so I appreciate the fact that Chell is a woman despite the fact that, if she were a man, pretty much nothing about the game would change. She's not a woman for plot purposes. She's not a woman for eye candy purposes; it's a first-person game and you almost never see her on screen. She just happens to be a woman.
Protagonist (Persona 3). I'm talking about the original game here, as I haven't yet played Reload. The Persona 3 protagonist doesn't have anywhere near the amount of personality that comes through in Persona 5's protagonist, but I still got a slight impression of his character. The Persona 3 protagonist generally comes across to me as clueless and eager to please, which is mildly endearing.
Protagonist (Persona 4). Again, I only got a faint sense of personality from Persona 4's protagonist, but there's still enough there for me to pick up on something: a quiet, serious kid who cares very strongly about his friends.
Sonic (Sonic the Hedgehog). Sonic gets an unfair advantage here because I used to watch The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and read Sonic the Comic! But his animations still give him some cute personality as a silent protagonist, e.g. the way he gets visibly impatient if you leave him motionless.
Amaterasu (Okami). I considered putting Amaterasu in the 'basically indifferent to, but they get points for being cute' tier below! But, in addition to being cute, she gets extra points for the touch of personality in her reactions, and in being able to bite anyone.
Stanley (The Stanley Parable). As with Chell, Stanley is truly and completely silent, but the nature of the gameplay gives you an impression of his character: rebellious, contrary, curious.
Silent protagonists I'm basically indifferent to, but they get points for being cute:
Ori (Ori and the Blind Forest). Ori is, to be fair, very cute, and a little personality comes across in the story cutscenes. It's possible I'm ranking Ori down slightly because I hated the ending of Ori and the Will of the Wisps so much that it impacted my feelings about the entire series.
Dixie/Donkey/Diddy Kong (Donkey Kong Country). There's some personality in their animations, but I never became invested in them as characters.
Silent protagonists I'm indifferent to:
Frisk (Undertale). There's some cute personality in some of the ACT options, but overall I didn't get especially attached to Frisk.
Jak (Jak & Daxter). In the first game, I had no real interest in Jak; the most interesting thing about him is probably the fact that this quiet kid is friends with the non-stop chatterbox Daxter. (Which works out pretty well; as a quiet kid, I found it comfortable to be friends with other kids who were happy to talk without much input from me!) In Jak II he gained the ability to talk (and a lot of trauma) and immediately became a lot more interesting to me!
Reycho (World's End Club). This kid has basically no personality, but he escapes last place because he joined in the stupid 'A human, a human, a human!' dance that made me crack up.
Mario (Super Mario series). Mario is, of course, a classic videogame protagonist who has starred in a lot of well-crafted games! But I do not care about him as a character.
Separately, there's a 'this isn't a character; this is just me' section that doesn't really fit into the fondness ranking:
Protagonist (Pokémon). The protagonist of Pokémon games is just me. It's a kid, and it's often a boy; in Pokémon games where you choose the protagonist's gender, I'll just go with whichever protagonist I prefer the design of. But it's still me.
When I'm playing as a boy in Pokémon games, I usually name the protagonist Rakuni. (If I'm playing as a girl, of course, I'll go with Riona.) But 'Bulby is the protagonist's Bulbasaur' or 'Bulby is Rakuni's Bulbasaur' would be an absolutely insane thing to say. Bulby is my Bulbasaur.
There are Pokémon protagonist designs I like more than others; my favourite is the male protagonist (Hilbert) in Pokémon Black. But I can't rank the characters by fondness; they're all just me.
I'm not sure what conclusions I can draw from this exercise!
I suppose, looking back over this list, I find it interesting that my three favourite silent protagonists each caught my attention in different ways. Joker's personality shines through in his charming animations and fun dialogue options. Sunny's trauma and inner thoughts are conveyed to the player through the game's environments and mechanics. Kris is a mystery who you learn about primarily through the way other characters react to or talk about them.
So I suppose there are multiple ways to create an interesting silent protagonist! It's still rare for games to present me with a silent protagonist who really catches my attention, but it's good to know that it can be done.
It tends to put me off trying a videogame if the protagonist is silent. I often find it hard to get invested in silent protagonists, and that can really impair my enjoyment of a game. If I'm going to spend hours inhabiting a particular character, I'd like to care about that character!
However, in recent years, I've discovered a couple of silent protagonists who really clicked for me. I thought it might be interesting - for me, if no one else - to consider which silent protagonists work for me, and what makes them work.
Therefore: here's a list of silent protagonists from games I've played, in roughly descending order of fondness!
I'm defining 'silent protagonist' here as a character who hits both of the following points:
a) They are unvoiced or minimally voiced. They might have voiced action grunts or brief battle quotes, but they're never going to say an eloquent line of dialogue aloud.
b) If they speak at all, it's exclusively or almost exclusively through occasional dialogue options chosen by the player. They don't paraphrase or elaborate on the dialogue option; the text in the option is all you get.
I've omitted characters from games I never really played enough of to form a strong impression of the protagonist, e.g. Bloodborne and the various Zelda games I've unsuccessfully attempted to get into. I've also probably omitted some characters just because they slipped my mind.
Silent protagonists I love:
Protagonist (Persona 5). I've never seen another silent protagonist with quite as much personality as Joker. Plenty of voiced protagonists don't have as much personality as Joker. His animations are stylish and distinctive; his dialogue options are frequently hilarious. He's a bold, playful, sarcastic little shit and I love him.
Sunny (Omori). The game really immerses you in Sunny's head, in a very literal way. Although he never speaks, I got a strong impression of his fears and delusions and psychological struggles, and I ended up getting very attached to this kid. Omori doesn't typically give you choices more complex than 'yes/no', but I found it interesting that the game would sometimes offer yes/no choices as a way of indicating hesitation, fear or reluctance; there are times when just the fact that you're being offered the choice tells you something about Sunny's character, because it means he's torn between the two options.
Kris (Deltarune). I find Kris fascinating. There's something so strange and dark and unsettling about them, and the glimpses we get of their character paint an interestingly complicated picture. They're lonely, they're bored, they're an outcast, they're sentimental, they have a cruel streak, their friends mean a lot to them. The player, in their role as the one controlling the protagonist, is able to make Kris do things against their will, but it's unclear how Kris feels about the player's presence overall. I'm so interested to see how the rest of Deltarune goes.
Silent protagonists I like:
Chell (Portal). Chell is truly silent, never gets so much as a dialogue option, but the gameplay conveys an impression of her character as relentlessly determined. She also stands out to me for being a female silent protagonist, which I haven't seen many of! It often feels like protagonists aren't allowed to be female unless there's somehow a reason for them to be female, so I appreciate the fact that Chell is a woman despite the fact that, if she were a man, pretty much nothing about the game would change. She's not a woman for plot purposes. She's not a woman for eye candy purposes; it's a first-person game and you almost never see her on screen. She just happens to be a woman.
Protagonist (Persona 3). I'm talking about the original game here, as I haven't yet played Reload. The Persona 3 protagonist doesn't have anywhere near the amount of personality that comes through in Persona 5's protagonist, but I still got a slight impression of his character. The Persona 3 protagonist generally comes across to me as clueless and eager to please, which is mildly endearing.
Protagonist (Persona 4). Again, I only got a faint sense of personality from Persona 4's protagonist, but there's still enough there for me to pick up on something: a quiet, serious kid who cares very strongly about his friends.
Sonic (Sonic the Hedgehog). Sonic gets an unfair advantage here because I used to watch The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and read Sonic the Comic! But his animations still give him some cute personality as a silent protagonist, e.g. the way he gets visibly impatient if you leave him motionless.
Amaterasu (Okami). I considered putting Amaterasu in the 'basically indifferent to, but they get points for being cute' tier below! But, in addition to being cute, she gets extra points for the touch of personality in her reactions, and in being able to bite anyone.
Stanley (The Stanley Parable). As with Chell, Stanley is truly and completely silent, but the nature of the gameplay gives you an impression of his character: rebellious, contrary, curious.
Silent protagonists I'm basically indifferent to, but they get points for being cute:
Ori (Ori and the Blind Forest). Ori is, to be fair, very cute, and a little personality comes across in the story cutscenes. It's possible I'm ranking Ori down slightly because I hated the ending of Ori and the Will of the Wisps so much that it impacted my feelings about the entire series.
Dixie/Donkey/Diddy Kong (Donkey Kong Country). There's some personality in their animations, but I never became invested in them as characters.
Silent protagonists I'm indifferent to:
Frisk (Undertale). There's some cute personality in some of the ACT options, but overall I didn't get especially attached to Frisk.
Jak (Jak & Daxter). In the first game, I had no real interest in Jak; the most interesting thing about him is probably the fact that this quiet kid is friends with the non-stop chatterbox Daxter. (Which works out pretty well; as a quiet kid, I found it comfortable to be friends with other kids who were happy to talk without much input from me!) In Jak II he gained the ability to talk (and a lot of trauma) and immediately became a lot more interesting to me!
Reycho (World's End Club). This kid has basically no personality, but he escapes last place because he joined in the stupid 'A human, a human, a human!' dance that made me crack up.
Mario (Super Mario series). Mario is, of course, a classic videogame protagonist who has starred in a lot of well-crafted games! But I do not care about him as a character.
Separately, there's a 'this isn't a character; this is just me' section that doesn't really fit into the fondness ranking:
Protagonist (Pokémon). The protagonist of Pokémon games is just me. It's a kid, and it's often a boy; in Pokémon games where you choose the protagonist's gender, I'll just go with whichever protagonist I prefer the design of. But it's still me.
When I'm playing as a boy in Pokémon games, I usually name the protagonist Rakuni. (If I'm playing as a girl, of course, I'll go with Riona.) But 'Bulby is the protagonist's Bulbasaur' or 'Bulby is Rakuni's Bulbasaur' would be an absolutely insane thing to say. Bulby is my Bulbasaur.
There are Pokémon protagonist designs I like more than others; my favourite is the male protagonist (Hilbert) in Pokémon Black. But I can't rank the characters by fondness; they're all just me.
I'm not sure what conclusions I can draw from this exercise!
I suppose, looking back over this list, I find it interesting that my three favourite silent protagonists each caught my attention in different ways. Joker's personality shines through in his charming animations and fun dialogue options. Sunny's trauma and inner thoughts are conveyed to the player through the game's environments and mechanics. Kris is a mystery who you learn about primarily through the way other characters react to or talk about them.
So I suppose there are multiple ways to create an interesting silent protagonist! It's still rare for games to present me with a silent protagonist who really catches my attention, but it's good to know that it can be done.